Appeal No. 2002-1383
Application No. 08/868,972
The terms used in the claims bear a “heavy presumption” that they mean what
they say and have the ordinary meaning that would be attributed to those words by
persons skilled in the relevant art. Texas Digital Sys., Inc. v. Telegenix, Inc., 308 F.3d
1193, 1202, 64 USPQ2d 1812, 1817 (Fed. Cir. 2002). Dictionaries, encyclopedias, and
treatises are particularly useful resources in determining the ordinary and customary
meanings of claim terms. Id. at 1202, 64 USPQ2d at 1818. Indeed, these materials
may be the most meaningful sources of information in better understanding both the
technology and the terminology used by those skilled in the art to describe the
technology. Id. at 1203, 64 USPQ2d at 1818.
In the instant case, all the independent claims contain the term “virtual circuit
bunch.” A “virtual circuit,” or “virtual channel,” is a recognized term of art in the field of
digital networks. Appellants note that a virtual, rather than a physical, connection is
defined between the source of a packet and its definition. A virtual circuit gives the
appearance of maintaining a hardware connection, but utilizes the resources of the
connection only when data need to be sent. (Spec. at 1, l. 11 - 2, l. 6.)
Subramanian, applied against the claims by the examiner, further indicates the
meaning of virtual channels, and virtual paths, in the context of a general overview of
ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) communications.
In an ATM network, the information is actually transmitted through
the network in fixed-length cells through virtual paths/virtual channels which
are set up to facilitate such communications. The virtual paths may
comprise a plurality of virtual channels. The use of virtual channels/virtual
paths allows a large number of connections to be supported on a single
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